6 min readAug 26, 2026 11:47 AM IST
First published on: Aug 25, 2026 at 05:41 PM IST
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and five new republics emerged in Central Asia, there was extraordinary enthusiasm in Delhi about reconnecting with a region that had deep historical ties with India. But India’s lack of direct access, limited national capabilities, and persistent geopolitical headwinds have complicated that engagement.
India was not alone in imagining a grand reconnection between Central and South Asia. After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration bet that Afghanistan’s long-term stability could be secured by reconnecting the two regions. In 2006, Washington reorganised the State Department to bring the Central Asian states together with Afghanistan and the Subcontinent in a new South and Central Asian bureau. The hope was that Afghanistan could become a natural bridge between the two regions. That vision proved difficult to realise amid Afghanistan’s internal and external conflicts and the enduring tensions between India and Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who travels to Central Asia this week for a bilateral visit to Uzbekistan and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, will find a region very different from the one he toured in 2015. Four broad trends stand out.
The first is the growing geopolitical agency of Central Asia. Long viewed as five vulnerable landlocked states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — on the periphery of Russia and China, they are acquiring greater internal coherence. Since 2018, the five have met regularly at the summit level in the consultative meetings of the heads of state of Central Asia. They have now signed a friendship treaty among themselves and plan to give it some organisational substance and turn the region into a genuine Central Asian community. The Central Asian Five invited Azerbaijan to form the C-6 that links Central Asia more closely to the Caucasus and Türkiye.
Equally important has been the settlement of the long-running border disputes in the Fergana Valley among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Growing intra-regional trade has reinforced the new political cooperation. Central Asia is becoming more of a region in its own right rather than merely the sum of five post-Soviet republics.
Second is the diversification of great-power relations. The traditional “Great Game” framework — external powers competing for control over a passive Central Asia — is utterly inadequate. During 2025, Central Asian leaders held summits with the European Union, China, Russia, the United States and Japan. Central Asia has never been more courted — and perhaps never less amenable to exclusive relationships.
Russia remains an important partner in security, but the Ukraine war and China’s rising economic influence have weakened Moscow’s former dominance. Washington has returned with a new emphasis on commerce, critical minerals and energy corridors. Europe, Japan and others are also expanding their engagement. Central Asia’s answer is the familiar “multi-vector” strategy — not unlike India’s own multi-alignment. It engages all and commits exclusively to none.
The third trend is Central Asia’s growing entanglement with the Greater Middle East. Although predominantly Muslim, the region’s political and cultural orientation was long shaped by its Russian and Soviet past. That balance is changing. At the Central Asian summit with the US in Washington last November, Kazakhstan announced its accession to the Abraham Accords. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan signed the charter of Trump’s Board of Peace at Davos in January. Gulf capital has become increasingly important across Central Asia. Türkiye has transformed the Organisation of Turkic States from a largely cultural forum into an instrument for wider political, economic and defence cooperation.
The Iran war has complicated Central Asia’s traditional southern access to the open seas and increased the importance of alternative routes westward across the Caspian towards Azerbaijan, Türkiye and the Mediterranean. The region’s geopolitical horizons are widening well beyond the old Russian-Chinese framework.
Fourth is the diminution of the Afghan question. The much-feared export of revolution after the Taliban’s return to power five years ago has not materialised. Central Asian states including Tajikistan, which was most fearful of the Taliban, have moved towards pragmatic engagement with Kabul. Meanwhile, they have cracked down hard on the radical forces at home. But new problems are arising, for example on the management of the shared waters of Amu Darya.
Where does all this leave India?
Delhi enjoys considerable goodwill in Central Asia, but geography continues to constrain its ambitions. India has no direct land access. Pakistan blocks the obvious overland route, while Afghanistan remains unstable. Chabahar and the International North-South Transport Corridor offered an alternative, but the growing conflict between Iran and the US has complicated their prospects. India’s one hard-built connectivity node in the region now sits idle.
The changing regional dynamic therefore calls for a less romantic and more modest Indian approach.
India cannot match China’s infrastructure spending, Russia’s geographic advantages, Europe’s financial resources or Türkiye’s direct access across the Caspian. Nor does it need to. Sustained political attention should be matched by a practical economic agenda focused on areas where India can contribute. Delhi must also consider whether greater diplomatic flexibility towards Pakistan, Türkiye and Azerbaijan can improve its room for manoeuvre in the region.
Above all, India must recognise the political character of the new Central Asia. Its states do not want another patron; they want multiple partnerships that expand their room for manoeuvre. Modi’s visit should be less about grand schemes and more about ensuring a modest, sustained and steadily expanding Indian presence in a Central Asia that is increasingly confident of playing its own game.
The writer is contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express. He is a distinguished professor at the Motwani Jadeja Institute of American Studies, Jindal Global University and holds the Korea Foundation Chair on Asian Geopolitics at the Council for Strategic and Defence Research, Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who travels to Central Asia this week for a bilateral visit to Uzbekistan and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, will find a region very different from the one he toured in 2015. 
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